While our heads were turned, focused on debates about players taking control of their own destinies, coaches have quietly been making their move. Jason Kidd’s attempted power play in Brooklyn backfired. The Hall of Fame player turned head coach wanted the final say on personnel moves. He wanted to pick the players and then coach them. And he went straight to the Nets’ upper management to try and get his way.

The gall behind it all was staggering. At least it seemed that way. But rest assured, Kidd won’t be the last to try it.

Coaches can argue the necessity of it all these days.

They are a constant endangered species. There isn’t a job in the league with less security than being the man calling the shots at the head of the bench. In the last two years we’ve seen four coaches fired who won 50 or more games. We’ve seen Mike Dunlap be fired after one season. We’ve seen Mike Brown get fired after one season. Maurice Cheeks didn’t even get a full season before he was fired in Detroit.

To coaches across the league, the trend is alarming and eye-opening. And it has led to this: Coaches coming in looking to have more control of their professional lives.

Stan Van Gundy wouldn’t return to the bench unless he also oversaw all of basketball operations. That’s going to help him avoid – or at least survive – a star player-led coup, the likes of which left him out on the street after a wildly successful run as coach of Orlando.

Minnesota’s president of basketball operations, Flip Saunders, installed himself as the head coach. He might fire himself, but not before he gives himself every opportunity to succeed first. Doc Rivers was handed basketball oversight when he was traded from Boston to the L.A. Clippers last year. He has since been formally named president of basketball operations.

More power equals more control. In the “here today, gone tomorrow” NBA coaching profession, it is the only way they can assure themselves of whatever each individual deems a fair opportunity at a chance to succeed.

Mistrust is around every corner in the league. The players figured it out, and right now the superstars are craftily drawing up contracts that allow them to opt out and steer their own ship to the next team. It won’t be long before role players figure out a way, even if on a smaller scale, to do something similar. We’re sure to see coaches begin to align themselves with friends in management – as Kidd did – or come into situations tethered to a like-minded general manager who believes in, trusts, likes and because of all of that, has patience in the man he signs the players for.

The Kidd Control saga, which I’m guessing hasn’t seen its final chapter, pushed another coach out to achieve part of the goal. Rest assured, Larry Drew won’t go into his next job without additional assurances and safeguards and probably a request for more say in basketball operations. He can’t afford to do anything less.

Milwaukee says its current general manager, John Hammond, will remain so. Time will tell if it stays that way.

What isn’t staying status quo is a coaches’ blind faith in the organization that hires him. Kidd at one point in his introductory press conference in Milwaukee grinned and repeated that this is all just business.

“This is business,” he said. “It’s business, and that’s what it comes down to.”

Kidd has an already secure player legacy. His as a coach might just be in starting a sea change on how coaches business gets done.